


Five Things That Happened After the Mockingbird Sang

by Minna Leigh (minnaleigh)



Category: To Kill a Mockingbird
Genre: F/F, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 13:34:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1094466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minnaleigh/pseuds/Minna%20Leigh





	Five Things That Happened After the Mockingbird Sang

Written for: Kastaka in the New Year Resolutions Challenge 2005  


Now that I find myself alone again, I think back over my life and look for the clues I missed for so long. My fascination with Boo Radley could not have predisposed me to a life of perversion or love, whichever term you prefer, not if Jem and Dill and their ordinary lives are anything to judge by. Not that I can ask them, of course, because for all the things we talk over when we see each other, there is one topic that never gets broached.

1.

It seems to me that all of my life, everyone outside my close family circle of Atticus and Jem wanted more than anything for me to grow up a lady. Eventually, even Jem switched from using the label 'girl' as an insult to using it as an instruction.

After the summer of 1935, I could almost see the point to being a lady, could recognize that strength peculiar to a certain breed of ladies that puts the very different strength of men in its place. I recollect, however, that my overalls were considered by everyone but me to be a major hindrance. I resolved to be the first ever grownup lady to live my life entirely in pants.

2.

Miss Thatcher was my English teacher when I was in grade 11. She was tall, almost as tall as Atticus. I stopped cutting my hair, hoping to grow it long enough that I could sweep it back with mother-of-pearl barrettes the same way she did hers, and deeply regretted that I'd been born with brown hair. I admired the glasses she wore and tried to convince Atticus that I was suddenly having trouble reading. I would watch her closely during the rare moments when she took off her glasses and rubbed the marks they left behind. When she turned her unfocused gaze on me, I'd blush and look away but I'd see the blue of her eyes in my memory for hours after.

The entire year I was in her class, I sought her out at lunch and after school as often as I could. At first, I went prepared with questions but gradually I stopped making up excuses. Miss Thatcher and I talked about books, mainly. She'd read more books than anyone I'd ever met and I could have listened to her talk about them forever. Sometimes I could hardly speak when I was with her, I was fortunate that I could breathe. Other times, I couldn't halt the words falling out of my mouth as I tried to communicate some small part of who I was and what I thought to her.

As the end of the school year drew close, I began to worry about missing our talks all summer long. I pictured myself passing by where she lived, hoping for a chance encounter that might lead to an invitation to tea. I plotted to avoid returning a book she'd lent me so that I had an excuse to knock on her door. I comforted myself with the knowledge that summer would soon be over.

On the last day of class, when she told us that she was getting married, I couldn't get my congratulations past the lump in my throat. She was leaving teaching, leaving town, leaving me.

3.

As I flip through a box filled with letters arranged by date, childish scrawls gradually give way to a more confident, if not more legible, hand. I pull out the letter from the bottom of the stack. It wasn't really the last letter; there have been occasional notes and regular Christmas cards since, but those were signed by someone else entirely and are kept elsewhere.

I touch the worn page and remember the careful way Dill wrote about his plans. I remember trying to craft a response that joked about letting him out of his long-ago promise to marry me when we grew up, a response that did not hint at the relief I felt at his finding someone else.

4.

On Sunday afternoons, after Atticus passed, Jem and his children would sometimes visit me at the home I shared with Meg. Sarah, his wife, would stay home; we maintained the polite fiction that she needed the quiet time to herself. When they arrived, Joanie and James would tumble out of the backseat of the car, duplicate cries of "Aunt Scout" on their lips. The afternoon would pass too quickly in a blur of activity, outside except in the worst weather, a long hike in the autumn sunshine, the kids running ahead, or a game of football in the backyard, Joanie and I a formidable team.

At first, when Meg brought out lemonade or cocoa, depending on the season, the children would politely say, "Thank you, Miss Margaret." Meg would leave us then and go for a walk or find some chore that needed doing in another room. Eventually, she began to sit with us and listen as Jem and I tried to talk around the demands of the children and gradually, with time and Jem's courteous attention, she became a part of the conversation. Meg joined us for longer and longer periods of time and one day the children climbed out of the back of the car calling for Miss Meg before they even looked to me.

5.

From the time the doctor told us that Meg did not have much longer to live, I didn't leave her side except when absolutely necessary. Her hand in mine, I sat next to the bed for hours on end. Sometimes we talked, telling each other the stories of our lives together, laughing or crying in turn. Other times our eyes spoke as we sat quietly, listening to the ticking of the clock and the sounds of life in the neighborhood. When Meg slept, sometimes I would remember the long afternoons I spent with Jem at the bedside of Miss DuBois. As painful as it was to watch Meg slip away from me, at least I'd had a life and a love for as long as I did, at least Meg wasn't dying with only acquaintances to keep her company.

After she died, I picked up the phone and dialed a number I'd never called before, spoke to a voice belonging to a face I'd only ever seen in pictures. The next day a car pulled up in front of the house and a couple got out. Meg's sister and her husband walked into the house they'd never seen before. They couldn't look me in the face as they explained the house would be sold soon and asked me to vacate the house as quickly as possible.

Now I sit, surrounded by as many mementos of my life as I could fit into Jem's guest room, and remember all of it, every moment of joy and sorrow and pleasure and pain. I can no longer begin most of my stories with "Do you remember..." but I have a willing audience of at least two when I say, "I remember when..." Some stories need to be shared.

 


End file.
